No political apathy among these youth

Though they are commonly dismissed as disengaged and self-centred, hundreds of young British Columbians have put their online self-portrait, or “selfie,” shoots on hold and dropped their Xbox controllers to help campaign for the four main political parties.

Their motivations for joining a party at a young age are as varied as their backgrounds, but many say they want to “make their voice heard.”

They also say it is a unique way to learn firsthand about the processes they study in school, even if they are loathe to admit a desire to become a career politician.

Shewit Kidane, 22, volunteers for his friend — and fellow son of Eritrean immigrants — Daniel Tseghay who is the Green party’s underdog candidate in the Vancouver-False Creek riding.

The Kwantlen Polytechnic University political science major says he has always read voraciously about Canadian and international current affairs, and this interest naturally translated into politics. When he found out Tseghay was running through the network of Metro Vancouver’s Eritrean community, he decided to help out.

“Sometimes you don’t really need to make a difference, you can support someone else doing that,” he explains.

“I volunteer because I feel like, as Canadians, or people in Vancouver, we’re just not politically active,” Kidane adds.

Young campaign volunteers, of any political stripe, are very outgoing people with a wide array of interests, he says.

“When I look at the other people who are canvassing or volunteering, they tend to be very active, not only just in this (political) realm … but just in life,” Kidane says. “They tend to be go-getters.”

Several days a week, before he starts his night shift manning the front desk at a ritzy Granville Street condo tower, Kidane walks the streets to talk to people. He lumbers up to them amiably, armed with a clipboard holding a stack of glossy candidate flyers, a map of the riding’s boundaries and a recipe card with his hand-written talking points.

It is tough for Kidane to find the riding’s eligible voters in a downtown core bustling with commuters and Japanese twentysomethings on break from ESL class. It’s tougher still for him to capture a minute of their attention to talk about the Green party’s platform, but he perseveres. At the end of almost two hours he has handed out his stack of 75 flyers.

Five blocks away at the B.C. Liberals’ campaign headquarters, on the outskirts of Gastown, 22-year-old Nicole Paul brainstorms ways to contribute to a new site where voters can submit questions to Premier Christy Clark. Paul and a colleague agree to take their smartphones and canvass the nearby streets for people willing to be filmed.

The Maple Ridge native took the semester off from the University of Victoria to take on a paid position organizing the party’s youth campaign, which she says has about 300 active volunteers under 25.

Her manicured nails are adorned with the party’s logo and colours. She says she first started volunteering for the Liberals at 17 after being drawn to the party even earlier.

“I remember watching the 2001 election results come in with my parents when Gordon Campbell and the B.C. Liberals first took government and I was just amazed,” Paul says. “(I) said to my dad, ‘Whoever wins this gets to rule the whole province?’

“And I was fascinated by that idea.”

Many of the campaign staff are under 40, Paul says, and well-equipped to deal with the dizzying day-to-day pace.

“If you choose to get involved when you’re young, you have a lot more energy to keep up with those demands, and it’s exciting because it’s new as well.”

She says she doesn’t understand why more people her age aren’t involved in politics, and then launches into what seems like a polished speech:

“Policy decisions that are being made today are going to affect the next generation, plain and simple.”

One of the most pressing issues, she says, is the need to fund a health care system that will become increasingly strained by aging baby boomers.

“Those people aren’t going to be working to pay for them over the next 30 years, (it’s) my generation that will be,” Paul says. “For that reason I think that all young people should really care and really be wanting to get involved in politics, and for me this is a way to make my voice heard.” Fiery B.C. Conservative party volunteer and aspiring pundit Lauren Southern, 17, agrees.

A more passionate populace would make politicians more accountable, she says.

“If people aren’t passionate, if people aren’t questioning, then there’s no accountability for the politicians to do anything, say anything, or get anything done,” says the high-school senior from Langley, known to friends as “Palin.”

The NDP’s Jarrah Hodge, Southern’s fellow panelist on Global BC’s weekly youth pundit election round table, says it’s important for young people active in political parties not to turn off their peers with corrosive partisanship.

Well-versed in buzzwords and party talking points, the 27-year-old ran as a 19-year-old in the 2005 provincial election against former finance minister Colin Hansen.

“Me and the other panelists, we don’t hate each other,” she says. “We disagree with each other and it’s been really, I think, productive to put a new face on politics and show that young people can have a voice.”

Political science professor Maxwell Cameron, the director of the University of B.C.’s Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions, said youth involvement in party politics goes against the perceived wisdom that young people are apolitical.

“Youth tend to be very issue-driven so they care passionately about things like the environment, but they don’t necessarily see parties as vehicles to express their political aspirations,” he said. “It’s interesting, nonetheless, that there are still many youth who do see parties as vehicles for making change or for participating and being engaged in the political process.”

An early start in party politics can lead to a “political career that can go for their entire lifetime,” he added.

“My sense is you need a mix in politics, the knowledge and skills that you get from a life of politics gives you well-honed political instincts and enables you to be effective in ways which an amateur may not be able to.

“The amateurs when they come in are, on the other hand, useful because they bring oxygen into the blood of the political system.”

“If the political system becomes a professional political class that’s disconnected from other professions and other spheres of life then I think there’s a danger that it loses touch with the concerns of ordinary people.”

Back at Global’s Burnaby studios, the panel of youth pundits are finishing up as host Jill Krop preps to interview political wunderkind Jennifer Johnson.

As the 12-year-old chats with the host, her mother Jackie Hollis recounts how a Grade 5 class field trip to the Legislature in Victoria two years ago turned her daughter into a “political fiend.”

“It’s the power, she says ‘I can’t believe that I can sit in that room and make decisions to make this country better,’” an astounded Hollis says with a glint of pride. “She’ll definitely go somewhere, I think she’s headed for Premier or Prime Minister.”

Hollis says her daughter isn’t chained to any one party and already committed to helping Vancouver Conservative MP Wei Young campaign next federal election.

Her daughter was approached by the B.C. NDP, but settled on helping Clark’s Liberals try to renew their mandate after that party accepted her wholeheartedly, Hollis says.

“Her point is also, ‘They were good to me isn’t that why we vote for a government? Because they’re good to you?’

“Immature answer, but it does work.... That’s why you vote for somebody because they’re good to you, the government’s doing what you want.”

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